Apparently the sun has to do with this phenomenon as well, which may make the phenomenon less frequent - I found this:
http://yahooligans.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/illus/sptide.html
Martin
Chris Broomell wrote:
Deb,
If I am not mistaken (which rarely happens) - this phenomenon may be a spring tide. My understanding is that at the full and new moon phases the tides go to the extreme high and low (spring tide) and halfway between these moon phases you have a neap tide (less water movement between tides). So...these actually happen MANY times throughout the year...2 springs and 2 neaps each moon cycle, but the extremes to which the tides shift may fluctuate. For example...we may have a high tide of +6.8 (ft above sea level) in the evening and a low tide of -3.5 ft the following morning...so that would be a total of over 10 ft of water moving (and a better time to fish for halibut here on the central coast of Cali). During a neap phase, there may be a high tide of +1.5 ft and a low tide following at -.7 ft....so only about 2 feet of water moving. More water moving corresponds to more current, more bottom perturbation, usually (around here) more fish movement and more tourist deaths.
Hope that this helps.
Chris
At 08:14 AM 5/12/2004, you wrote:
I have a question for you VFB'er near a coast. Byard is still laughing at me for my post on the tides here but he can't tell me what the phenomenon is called when you have a full moon and the tides are at extremes. It happens only a few times a year. (I called it a new moon and a full moon... that is what I understood a friend of mine to say but it can't happen) Do you know the proper name for it. It's causing the fishing to improve here lately. It also has caused some rough currents and a few people to drown so that's the down side to it. I enjoyed studying the bottom of bay while it was exposed. Before I started tying flies I never paid as much attention to the changes in the tides or current.
Please help educate me on this if you know about it and what causes it.
Deb
================================================================
Deze e-mail is door E-mail VirusScanner van Planet Internet gecontroleerd op virussen.
Op http://www.planet.nl/evs staat een verwijzing naar de actuele lijst waar op wordt gecontroleerd.
